This is a baking book full of rainbows and unicorns. The presentation is nice, with clear photographs and extra unicorn pictures adorning the pages. Recipes are split into four sections: whole cakes, small bakes, biscuits and cookies, and sweets and desserts.

Making things rainbowy means food colouring, which the book does discuss. The notes match my experiences. Liquid ones tend to flavour things when enough is used for dark colours, as well as often making mixtures too runny. The book doesn’t say it, but liquid red is a big culprit for taste, as it’s often beetroot. I used gel colourings, as these are easily available and go bright without making things taste odd.

The recipes have clear lists of things needed. Quantities are written out in full, so it says tablespoon rather than abbreviating it. This makes recipes a lot more accessible. There’s a wide range of things available, from fudge to bagels. Though the first impressions were good, the next step was to make things and see how the instructions held up.

My biggest project was the anti-gravity cake. This is a full-sized cake decorated to look as though rainbow sprinkles are pouring out of a floating jar above it, plus an optional unicorn. I chose this as a birthday cake. It isn’t noted in the recipe, but the unicorn used is from a toy range, rather than being sold as a cake topper. It makes it a good choice for children and adults like me, as it means the birthday person gets to keep the toy. I got the exact same unicorn as the book for my attempt at the cake. The only thing I switched out was the sprinkles: I used strands instead of confetti.

The instructions were clear and easy to follow. However, it suggests cutting the cake layers to make more layers. This would be fiddly to do and I couldn’t see a point in it, so I didn’t do that. The cake is already three layers deep and tall. Other than that, everything worked out. I made the dribble icing a bit too runny, so I didn’t get quite such a good effect. My blue was also different and turned teal when added to yellow buttercream. None of that was the fault of the instructions, and the differences were things someone wouldn’t notice unless they compared it to the book picture. I’d note this one does take a long time to do, as it has a lot of little bits to sort out. The final effect is good though.

Image Caption: A large colourful cake resting on a silver cake board. The cake is covered in teal buttercream. Purple and yellow icing dribbles down the edges. Pink buttercream is piped around the top edge. On the top, rainbow sprinkles fall down onto the cake from an apparently floating jar (spoiler: the falling sprinkles and jar are stuck to a stick). A white unicorn toy with rainbow mane stands near where the sprinkles fall on the cake. The background is a blue cloth with a silver dragonflies design.

An easier project was the rainbow fudge. It’s a quick fudge recipe, so it doesn’t need boiling. An oddity here is it needs melted white chocolate, but doesn’t suggest the common method of floating a plastic bowl in a saucepan of water. Though a heavy-bottomed saucepan can work for this, the bowl method is much less likely to burn, so I used the bowl. I also swapped the orange extract for vanilla, as it suits family taste preferences better.

This is a really quick recipe in some ways, but slow in others. It’s quick to melt everything down and make the basic fudge mixture. There’s not a lot to go wrong at this stage. What’s slower is the rainbow part, as the mixture needs to be separated and coloured. Then each layer needs a quick freeze before adding the next layer. It’s not difficult, but if cooking with children, this stage might be boring for them.

Cutting the fudge the next day was a bit challenging. I tried various knives, but ended up with the bread saw (a large serrated knife). It helped to freeze it for a few minutes between cuts. At this point, the fudge was very sticky, and would be difficult to transport. We ate it over several days, storing it in the fridge on plates covered in cling film. On the second day, it was firmer and much less sticky. If I was making this to take somewhere, I think I’d factor in that extra day of hardening.

The family really enjoyed the fudge. It mainly tastes of the white chocolate, so it’s worth getting good quality chocolate for it. This is one I can see making again.

Image Caption: Rectangles of fudge on a white plate. Each piece of fudge has rainbow stripes of red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple. They’re arranged in three semi-circles, as though they’re rainbows. A blue merunicorn toy also sits on the plate. The merunicorn has a boat symbol and is wearing an anchor hair ribbon, all modelled in plastic. The plate rests on a silky purple cloth with shiny spots.

My final choice was another of the sweet recipes, but one that’s more advanced. The fruit jellies are made in a similar way to jam, so it has more potential to go wrong if it isn’t boiled at the right temperature (it won’t set if it isn’t). This one also didn’t need artificial food colouring, so is a good choice for a sweet with nothing artificial. The main issue getting ready for this was the liquid pectin. For all the rest of the recipes, I got the ingredients from local supermarkets. This one had to be ordered, as I don’t have a baking shop locally.

I hit an obvious issue when I got started with this. The recipe recommends using a sugar thermometer, to make sure the boiling temperature is high enough. It’s a good idea in theory, but the average sugar thermometer is designed for people making big pots of jam. The quantities for the jellies were too small to cover the end of the thermometer. Usually, I’d simply have not bothered with the thermometer, but I figured a new cook would likely try to follow the instructions anyway. It’s a really bad idea. The thermometer can’t read the right temperature, and it can’t be attached to a small saucepan, so it’s a dangerous juggle to attempt to stir and test the temperature at the same time. The first batch did end up burning slightly due to this, though not in a way that couldn’t be salvaged (it just burnt a bit to the bottom, it didn’t flavour the whole mix). I never managed to read the required temperature on the thermometer.

For batch two and three, I went by my own experiences. That means I brought them to the boil, added the lemon juice and pectin as instructed, and then boiled rapidly for three to five minutes before testing. The recipe does explain how to test if it’s ready, by dropping some into cold water, which is all you really need. If it hasn’t hit the right temperature yet, it won’t pass the test.

The final jellies worked out fine. I made strawberry, blackberry and pineapple. The family were divided on which they liked best. I thought strawberry tasted a bit too much like solid jam, but that might be a plus for someone else. Pineapple was my favourite.

Image Caption: Fruit jelly sweets on a tray. The sweets are roughly square and covered in granulated sugar. From left to right, they’re strawberry (dark red), pineapple (yellow) and blackberry (reddish purple). The tray is oval and silver. It’s placed on a dark blue cloth covered with a silver bees design.

This is a book where it feels like someone had tested the instructions, as generally they were clear and tried to give advice on the best way to approach things. The photographs also looked like the actual items. What I expect happened with the jellies is the tester didn’t need to use a thermometer, so hadn’t hit that issue.

Something that isn’t mentioned is the unicorns in the photographs. Some look like cake toppers, but others are toys, such as the one for the cake I made. It might not be obvious to check toy shops, rather than baking shops, for these items. I used the same toy as the book for the anti-gravity cake, which is a Schleich Bayala rainbow unicorn foal. These are easily available in Europe (available at Amazon UK). It may be harder/more expensive to get this exact one elsewhere, but there are other designs from the Schleich Bayala range in the US (available at Amazon.com). These are nicely detailed toys and the range covers a whole bunch of fantasy animals and people.

The toy in the fudge photograph is one the book doesn’t use, but also came from the toy shop. It’s a Tokidoki Mermicorno (available at Amazon.com and Amazon UK). Note for these, you get a random one in each box. This is a pretty solid toy, but I felt it was expensive for what it was and not being able to choose the colour. On the other hand, the toy stands up firmly, which is good for a cake topper. It might also be just the look you’re after.

Unicorns could obviously be swapped out for other toys, to match the interests of the person receiving the cake. The main thing is to use plastic toys without any hair strands or the like, so the toy doesn’t leave bits in the cake, and the cake can be washed off the toy.

Image Caption: A close view of the unicorn on the cake. They’re a plastic model with a white coat, golden horn and hooves, and rainbow mane and tail. They have a horseshoe of rainbow gems on their back end. They have a front hoof raised as though about to walk. There’s glitter on the hooves, mane and tail.

Another possible use for these recipes is pride events and the like. There are a number of cakes with striped rainbow layers, which look a lot like pride flags. The piñata cake looks like a gender reveal cake with rainbow sweets, so could work for an adult having a non-binary gender reveal party.

Some recipes are more challenging than others. This means I wouldn’t advise anyone inexperienced to pick recipes to try at random. Start with easier ones like the fudge, and move on to the bigger projects later. Most recipes do use colourings, so it could be an issue if colouring is a problem. But some are coloured with fruit, such as the jellies, and natural colourings could be used for other recipes (these are usually paler, but would still be colourful). It would also be possible to do recipes without the rainbow part.

I thought this was a strong book that did what it set out to do. It’s whimsical and makes it clear how to handle layering all the colours. There’s a good balance between basic recipes and advice on how to make things look decorative. The rainbow fudge was particularly popular with the family, and I’m sure I’ll be asked to make it again.

Usually covers have a limited colour scheme, using shades of one colour, two colours that work together (either because they’re close together or dramatic opposites), or a bold tri-colour scheme using the primary colours. This is mainly because it’s very easy to make rainbows look like a unicorn vomited on the book.

Which is all very well, but the theme for my collection is rainbows, so an all-green cover wouldn’t exactly fit (no matter how lovely). I want to avoid any of the unicorn-vomit pitfalls, but I also want a rainbow. So before starting my own cover, I looked at other artwork using rainbows. These are my thoughts about using that colour scheme effectively.

Rainbow Rules

My first step was a visit to Google images. I searched for terms like “rainbows” and “rainbow lights”. A few observations on the pictures that came up are as follows:

Some images used the vomit method on purpose, such as psychedelic artwork and digitally edited photos of rainbows. These are intended to overload the viewer. There’s nothing wrong with that, but for a book cover, it’d detract from the details you want the viewer to see (the title and the author).

For non-psychedelic works, the most effective had de-saturated backgrounds, such as black, grey or a greyish shade of a colour. This made the rainbow stand out and also solved the visual overload problem. White backgrounds were also used for a brighter feel, but the rainbow stood out less against them.

Some focused mainly on one or two colours, with only small amounts of the rest. This gave the feel of the rainbow, without too much of a colour explosion.

The central colour would often appear to dominate at first glance, even if it was in the same quantity (or less) than the rest.

For contrasting areas, some used rainbow opposites. What I mean by this is they’d pair the opposite ends of the rainbow – red and violet. Usually in art, you’d use the opposite on the colour wheel* for this sort of contrast (which would be red opposite green, and violet (purple) opposite yellow). Red and purple wouldn’t be considered to have this sort of contrast, as they’re next to each other on the wheel. However, in a rainbow, the viewer has the expectation that red and purple are opposites, so odd though it is, it works (as long as the picture sufficient screams “rainbow”).

Realistic rainbows had more subdued colours for the rainbow itself, because in the real world, rainbows aren’t generally that bright against the sky. Sometimes it’s good to remember that you don’t have to set saturation to maximum when editing a rainbow picture.

Rainbow lights often had darker shades of the colour at the edges, with highlights in a bright/light shade. Most of these in the image search were photographs of lights, but the principle would work for a painted image too.

Cover Examples

After looking at rainbow images in general, I found book covers with rainbow colour schemes, and analysed which techniques they used (and how well).

Meant to Be – Lauren Morrill

The cover takes an inspiration from natural rainbows, both in having the rainbow in rays like a sun, and having a scene in the foreground. There are colours in the scene, but they’re somewhat muted (note the red dress is not that bright, and has been mostly shadowed out… the grass is somewhat de-saturated). It’s focused on reds and yellows, which goes with the feel-good contemporary novel blurb. It’s also used some rainbow opposites to show the city against the sky.

It does a decent job of implying a groovy psychedelic theme, without going into eye-bleeding territory. The thing I least like is the font choice, but that’s not a colour issue. It’s certainly readable.

The End of the Rainbow – V.C. Andrews

Not only did a unicorn have an accident here, but the magic turned it into a rainbow-vomit whirlwind, which ate the protagonist! Also, the title is in a similarly bright colour so there’s no real contrast. Add in the blurb, which talks about devastating tragedies, secrets and hardship, and someone had too many skittles.

In terms of colour balance, red was shifted to pink, and the yellow/green part is smaller than the rest (possibly in an attempt to make the yellow title text stand out a little more). This wasn’t a successful cover, and it doesn’t surprise me they changed it for the newer version (the new cover barely has any rainbow on, so I won’t be looking at it).

Arclight – Josin L. McQuein

The black background makes the light beams stand out, with white to outline the face without drawing away from the rainbows. A focus on purples and blues is common for speculative fiction, and has been used to good effect here.

Rainbow opposites were used for the title, making it stand out, but also fit with the rainbow theme. It uses the same patterning as the lights, linking the title to the picture.

Crewel – Gennifer Albin

Another speculative book with a different approach. One trick here is the extremes have been minimised. There’s only a hint of violet, indigo and blue. Red is softened to pink for most of it. Saturation has also been used – most of the background colour is less saturated (more subtle than using a grey background, but it’s still there). The swirls are the most saturated parts, and draw the eye (the focal point of those being near the centre, close to the title).

I liked the choice of the pink swirls and red lips as the central colours. It’s playing with cover colour stereotypes, as such colours are usually put on chicklit books. But it’s using them in different ways, with an overall composition that’s more dreamlike and suggests a speculative book. This goes with the blurb about becoming a beautiful and deadly spinster.

Much like Arclight, the title interacts with the picture. It’s dark, so it stands out, but has reddish sections where it crosses the picture.

My Plans

My original idea was a rainbow squid in a black ocean. Arclight was very close to my colour scheme ideas, so I’ve seen it can work.

The debatable point is how bright to make the squid. It could be lit up, as though it’s self-illuminated. It could also be fairly dark, as though a light is being shone onto it. Or a mix of both, with small points of light. As the squid body will take up a fair bit of the cover, I’m leaning towards a darker approach, with some points of light.

Colour-wise, purple/blue is often associated with speculative work, so would be a sensible dominate colour scheme. I liked Crewel‘s play on the cover colour stereotypes, but it’s more of a risk for self-published work. Making the genre easier to identify increases the chances of a reader looking at the book.

I preferred the covers where the title and the picture went together. Meant to Be worked as far as the picture was concerned, but the text seemed separate, as though it was an afterthought. But this decision can come a little later, as I’ll be adding the title digitally. The next step will be drawing the squid, which is a story for another post.

The whole day was full of sudden bursts of rain, like the Earth’s gardener tipping out a bucket. It was also very sunny.

There was a rainbow. I had to go out. Yes, I was very soggy.

But it won’t be the first or last time I’ve gone out in the rain for pictures. My camera is very forgiving. And a bit waterproof.

As well as bucket pouring, we’ve also had a run of spiders this year. I blame the new wheely bins, as they don’t really keep out the flies. Nature did its thing. More flies = more spiders. They go and hide when the weather is cold, but anytime we have a warm spell they’re out and about. Rain means warmth in the winter.

So I went out to photograph the spiders. Whilst standing on my front path with the camera, a delivery person arrived with a parcel. I got some funny looks. I also got the parcel, but it wasn’t for me.